Over the past two years, numerous American headlines have referenced a new, so-called ‘parental rights’ advocacy organisation dubbed Moms for Liberty (M4L). In pursuit of this goal, M4L has, at the time of writing, opened 275 chapters and has 115,000 members across the US. Due to this organisation’s success, several smaller groups have followed its lead in promoting book bans and other Christian nationalist policies in public schools. M4L chapters endorse local school board members to unseat opponents and amplify their conservative messages on social media and other news outlets. This group is also associated with targeted harassment and terroristic threats against these opponents and teachers, school administrators, and other school and library staff members that do not comply with their demands.
M4L Agenda
M4L’s overall agenda, however, extends beyond opposition to pandemic protections in schools. It has shifted its main focus to banning books with ‘objectionable’ content – that is, content deemed to be opposed to the group’s ‘nonpolitical’ white Christian nationalist ideology. White Christian nationalism is the belief that God intended the United States to be a Christian nation, and it should therefore operate under a set of policies that align with the vision of conservative Christian leaders and right-wing activists. This vision is as follows: American society is based on white, Christian, patriarchal hegemony. The growing numbers of nonwhites, non-Christians, and other out-groups (e.g., members of the LGBT+ community or immigrants), however, pose an irreconcilable threat to this moral order. Christian nationalists must therefore “take back the country”, by force if necessary.
M4L’s ultimate goal is to add the value system of white Christian nationalism to the curriculum in public schools nationwide.